*** Publication

These are the replication files for the following publication:

Umpierrez de Reguero, S. and M. Vink (2025). Pathways to external citizenship: the global extension of dual citizenship and voting from abroad.

Replication files at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/I0LXEP

*** Abstract

The extension of dual citizenship and external voting rights over the past decades has been widely observed. Both trends contribute to the phenomenon of external citizenship, where citizens residing abroad hold rights to political participation irrespective of other transnational ties. Yet these trends have been studied in a disconnected manner. This is remarkable as the exercise of external voting requires nationals abroad to keep a legal link with the home country, while dual citizenship acceptance is high on the agenda of politically mobilized emigrant communities. In this paper, we make two original contributions. First, applying sequence analysis to a dataset covering 194 countries over 61 years (N=10,310), we identify five dominant pathways in extending rights to dual citizenship and external voting: 1) norm setters, 2) dual citizenship only, 3) external voting only, 4) latecomers, and 5) norm resisters. Second, we analyze the correlates of these pathways with a focus on the predominant political regime type. Democratic regimes are not more prone to be norm setters that adopt both forms of rights extension but are less likely to be norm resisters that do not adopt either. Partial norm extenders and latecomers are not significantly associated with a particular regime experience.

*** Technical requirements

The replication files require the statistical software R to run (version 4.4.1 or higher, available here: https://www.r-project.org). Analyses performed in RStudio version 2024.04.2+764.

*** Instructions

To run the replication, follow these four steps:

1. Create a new project directory in RStudio 

2. Download GLOBALCIT Citizenship Law v2.zip from https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/73190 and save file 'data_v2.0_country-year.csv' from the Data folder in the zip file into the project directory

3. Run the code 'PathwExtCit_data_prep.R'

Running this code reconstructs two data files, which will be saved into your R project directory: 
- the main data file used for models m1a:m3b ('pathways_data.csv')
- and a version with data imputation for models m4a:m4b ('pathways_data_imp')

4. Run the code 'PathwExtCit_analysis.R'.

Running this code produces the output of the analysis as reported in the paper and the supplementary materials. 

Tables and figures will be stored in the project directory.

*** Contact

For questions, contact the corresponding author Maarten Vink at maarten.vink@eui.eu

Date: 25/07/2025

